Making 1 click to access is faster than typing the app name in finder. Dock is usually full and used for different type of apps. Makes also constantly visible output possible with standard ui patterns.
For this kind of read-only tool, I doubt that’s the case. A regular application probably serves most users better.
Also, if you want users to have the option of permanently displaying this kind of info, a desktop widget (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/widgetkit) may be a better option than a menu bar item.
My menu bar is also full and, unlike the Dock, I can’t resize it to fit more.
I just don't get why Apple doesn't recognize this as a problem. Do the engineers working on macOS all have two of these 5:1 aspect ratio ultra wide monitors!?
Especially with the abomination that is The Notch, the menu bar has been overcrowded for years. No offense to OP. I’m talking about the 5 or so items I can’t get rid of in there.
But Microsoft managed to deal with that issue - years ago. With XP they introduced collapsible tray area and later, it also become possible to rearrange icons.
Somehow for Apple the problem doesn't exist or they assume that their users will choose a 3rd party solution. Frankly, it's them who should provide the solution straight within the operating system. Especially when Apple computers revolve nowadays more around laptops which by definition have smaller display area.
defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain NSStatusItemSpacing -int 2
defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain NSStatusItemSelectionPadding -int 2
Replace write with delete to undo.
How is this conducive to the typical usage pattern of an app like this?
If so, it feels like a needlessly indirect and combative way to go about it.
Well, I can think of one reason why it wasn't that much more trouble. François Chollet had a nice tweet [1] on why removing human cognitive friction is resulting in needless software complexity.
[0] https://github.com/darrylmorley/whatcable/blob/main/Sources/...
This is kind of a hilarious statement just on the surface. Isn't removing burden from humans the whole purpose of software? How can you call the complexity "needless"?!
(the actual tweet seems to go into a bit more detail around being incentivized to find good abstractions)
People asked for it in these comments here and the developer added it.